AMD and Intel have never been more fiercely competitive with each other in gaming than they are today. There have been many times throughout silicon history when you could point to a make or break moment for one of these sides: AMD during the early '00s, or Intel struggling to get a new process operational. Rarely have we seen these two companies both bringing their absolute best to the table at the same time. That's the situation we PC gamers find ourselves in today - so how do you choose between them? Let us do the hard work for you...
Ryzen 7 7700X
AMD £339
1 On the face of it the Ryzen 7 7700X is maybe the least exciting of all the new Zen 4 chips from AMD. The Ryzen 9 7950X has the benefit of being cheaper and faster than its predecessor, and comes rocking the highest thread count of any chip out there. And the Ryzen 5 7600X is the highest clocked mainstream CPU around and is just $299.
A $399 eight-core, 16-thread CPU in 2022 seems kinda passé.
Yet in some gaming cases it will actually match the top-end $700 Ryzen 7000-series CPU, which is certainly not something you can ignore when you're looking for a new chip.
The Ryzen 7 7700X is still an excellent example of the generational improvements of the Zen 4 architecture. This third-tier chip is pretty regularly beating the cache-heavy special edition CPU of the last generation, and that was the best gaming processor AMD had ever made. It's efficient, incredibly fast and can easily deliver on the gaming front. But as we'll see often with Zen 4, not always a match for Intel's 13th Gen in gaming.
PC GAMER VERDICT
Better than a 5800X3D
Eco Mode is ace
Struggles against Intel's latest
Ryzen 9 7950X
AMD £620
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